Totaled motor?

cgdion

New member
I posted a question the other day about about my broken harmonic balancer that i think resulted from a loss of oil pressure. I've added a picture to maybe stir up some insight from you more inclined individuals :hatsoff:

I'm wondering if the motor is totaled what would be a good option for replacing it? Should i go with a rebuild or a get a rebuilt/reman? I'm getting it towed to a shop tomorrow but am still curious to find out what you all might think!
 

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That is not a harmonic balancer. That is a camshaft pulley. The belt appears to be in tact. I'm no mechanic but I have no idea what would cause the pulley to burst through the timing cover. Maybe someone will chime in here that knows a possible cause.
 
Depending what you where doing when that broke I'd say it's salvagable. Maybe a new head but looks like the camshaft pully broke off the shaft. But our motors are non interference so the bottom end should be good still.
 
Wow, just wow.

I wager a cam bearing seized so the crank just kept pulling on the Kevlar timing belt pulling the camshaft pulley towards the center of the engine. It just pivoted toward the passenger side by bending the cam in the middle. Left head is for sure destroyed. If cause was oil starvation, gotta figure other bearings were compromised. They will just have to tear it down and see, but the bottom end may have survived. I gotta figure right camshaft was bent in the course of this. I'm surprised belt teeth at crank sprocket did not go first.

Please, PLEASE, tape a small digital voice recorder to the brake master cyl before it gets towed away. I want to hear EVERY word the techs say when they open that hood.
 
HA! Thanks for the quick response, ya'll. It would be a relief if the motor is salvageable. As for the cause i had noticed a day prior that the oil light indicator was flashing intermittently and immediately pulled over to check the level. It was fine but i was still suspicious and decided to park it for the day at home. The next day is when shit hit the fan and after about a mile the light came and stayed on. Knowing this was definitely an "uh oh" situation i tried to bail off the main road as quickly as possible and just made it when the engine shuttered to a stop. Obviously i'm a novice at mechanics but i too was dumb founded when i saw what happened.
 
Hopefully the engine got one last Mardi Gras under its belt before it let go.

Did you hear any rod knock before this happened? I am amazed the timing belt is still on the pulley.

I wonder if the cam gear had previously been removed and it didn't get torqued down to the proper torque figure.

Keep us abreast. Finding a good used motor is the cheapest route to go IMHO.
 
I've only seen this 8 times on a toyota and every instance was a sludged up motor. I am not saying this instance is the case but I am curious of the findings
 
If you can get pics of the tear down, or at least of what they find inside the head, that would be awesome.
 
Holy shit! ;):

Given the circumstances around the failure, I'd be looking for a junkyard motor. You could rebuild that, but you'd want to replace the crank and cams to be safe and you're probably going to get into a lot more money than just swapping it.
 
That looks familiar! The exact thing happened to the engine in mine prior to me purchasing it. The prior owner didn't pay attention to an oil leak from the filter not being tight and bam, broken camshaft.

I considered swapping in a different head, but there was all kinds of silver particulate material in the remaining oil when it was drained. I found a low mileage 3.4 out of an '04 Tacoma to replace mine.
 

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That is one of the best prices Ive seen on a JDM motor...I would jump on that. 41,xxx miles jackpot!

I would ask them to give proof that it has 41k on it. My friend works at one of the bigger JDM engine importers in the mid-atlantic and he told me that there is no real way to give the exact the mileage. They usually have 40 to 60k at most on them. I would also ask for a compression test before buying.
 
That engine looks a bit different than the one in my '97 4Runner...oil filter is further back towards the rear, and mine doesn't have those 2 big hoses across the top.

And coming from Canada there likely would be customs fees as well as slower shipping time.

Ted
 
I've been curious about those JDM engines with the oddly placed heater hoses. The Wikipedia entry on the 5VZ-FE informs us that the engine was used in the Toyota Granvia, a minivan. A bit of Internet searching turned up the photos below, of a Granvia sale, from an Australian web site. The first, obviously, is of the car's engine. It's clearly a 5VZ-FE, and the heater core is in a very different location from 4Runners and Tacomas, the 5VZ-FE equipped vehicles most familiar to Americans and Canadians.

The 2nd photo is from that same vehicle's cabin. It's not clear to me that the engine cover comes off - it might - allowing access to the spark plugs and what not.

It's easy to imagine that this vehicle's engine, positioned as it is in a minivan, needs to have the oil filter in a different location. Also, as the eBay engine shows, the Granvia engines are not equipped with an oil cooler. Instead, that location is capped off.

Given the 1st photo showing the engine sited far back in the bay and under the dash, and not knowing how much cabin access is available, let's hear no more complaints from North Americans about spark plug changing and valve cover access on this engine.

Finally, you can read 2 Wikipedia sites for information on why these JDM engines exist.

Japanese domestic market - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor-vehicle_inspection_(Japan)
 

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I just bought a JDM engine from this place:

5VZ-FE 3.4L 96-03 4Runner / 95-99 T100 / 95-03 Toyota Tacoma 99-03 Tundra (V6 Only) Engine JDM 5VZFE

Ask for Will and tell him bryan christman sent you. He was a good guy and did pics and a video of compression test for me before i picked it up.

Not sure what shipping is as i picked mine up but it was $927 out the door.

My mechanic said it looked like it was in great shape with very low miles.

My only problem with it is that my oil pressure light comes on under 1000rpm. I have to put a pressure gauge on it next week to see if it's just a sending unit part, or the oil pump is actually bad.

But it runs great.
 
I have got many motors from them 3.0 and 3.4 they all have been very clean. So if the van 3.4 you need to switch over all you stuff from oil pan to all the top end stuff the same goes for the 3.0 everything. Brackets and all to make it all easier... I always replace the oil pumps and water pumps on all the motors we swap in. You never know how long they have been seating and what has made a home in the small opening. I have found mud wasp nest inside water pumps and what looked to me mouse nest in rad hoses as well. I always take them down to a long block and install all the stuff from the old more with fresh oil pumps and water pumps most of the time I just reuse the timing belts most look brand new and make sure you clean the oil pan out really well when you install them. I alway run them about 500 miles then. Do a fresh oil and filter change just to make sure they have the best start on a new life.
 

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